A hawk perched on the wooden tilt that ran down the center of the jousting yard, one round yellow eye on the combatants wheeling their horses into line. The bird seemed unconcerned by his proximity to the huge animals, but the stallion on his side of the lists bunched his hindquarters and spooked when he saw the bird. He dug his forehooves into the arena sand.
His rider spat a guttural curse and wrenched his head around, driving one spur into his side. She was tall--her legs wrapped the horse's barrel--and wore armor equal parts black faesteel and gold gilded, with a white unicorn on the breastplate. The horse opened his mouth in protest against her hold on the reins, eyes rolling and coat already lathered, but he settled into a tight, mincing prance.
"Ready?" Vethrys said. Her voice sounded loud, rough, and excited, lilting from gravelly alto to a higher, almost childish note. She pushed back one of the hinged cheek-pieces on her helm and lifted the padding-tipped lance from her attendant's grip.
"Ready." Her opponent had green hair and green eyes, both soon covered by his slitted visor, and managed to hit a note both lighter and grimmer in the one word. His armor was plainer, too, simple faesteel. The green branching tree on his chest identified him as Sir Aldrio Mirak, a minor knight from the Horn. He'd come to Arca with Vethrys shortly after the king had gone missing. When she closed her cheekpiece, he put up his lance.
Vethrys turned to her squire, Yevan, who had run to the middle of the lists. He held his arm upraised. "Begin!" he said. Yevan's arm went down.
The hawk shrieked, ruffled its feathers, and stayed where it was.
Fucking bird. Vethrys put spurs to her startled horse and sent him cruising forward, so close to the tilt her stirrup scraped the wood. She leaned forward, as always, more than some thought prudent, eyes fastened on the blue tree on her opponent's torso, not his steady lance-tip. Three. Two. One.
She unbraced her lance and, still leaning forward and to the right, drove at her opponent. They hit at almost the same instant. Aldrio had reined his gelding in at the last moment. His lance hit her hard enough to take all the wind out of her, even through the cushion of her armor. Too confident coming in, she didn't let go her reins quickly enough, but wrenched at her fast-moving horse again. He twisted sideways to avoid the bite of the bit and crashed through the tilt in a tangle of splintered flimsy wood and flailing hooves. Vethrys was flung free and hit the ground hard. For a moment she saw stars, flat on her back on sand that suddenly seemed harder than it had earlier. Then she could only think of her desperate, choking need to breathe.
At last, with a feeling like an internal pop, her lungs loosed their panicked hold on her breath. She shoved her visor up out of her eyes, and, blinking her vision back, she saw Aldrio's gelding cantering, reins loose, toward the other end of the lists. Her stallion had recovered too, or at least she saw no sign of him. She didn't much care.
"Bastard," she growled.
"Say it to my face, my Lady." Aldrio had clambered up to one knee not ten paces from Vethrys.
Impelled by frustrated anger, Vethrys rolled to her knees, then her feet, and drew her longsword. Aldrio met her two paces in.
The hawk still watched from its perch at the end of the tilt. Even from that distance he could make out every hair on them both. Vethrys was taller than Aldrio, her dirty-blond bangs stuck to her forehead with sweat. Aldrio, an inch or two shorter, unmistakably faery, looked fresher and less winded but moved more slowly anyway. His balance looked easier, but he stayed on the defensive, backing up in a slow circle and meeting Vethrys's pounding offensive with a series of blocks. He only pressed forward when she took a half-step too close, fooled by footwork, and then the tables turned. He took a moment to shove his visor back in place and drove her back, and back again. She had her sword raised to deflect a strike at her shoulder when she stepped on something uneven, a clump of sand or a rock that rolled underfoot. She went down again, feet tangled, sprawling painfully. Her sword spun away.
Aldrio, standing over her, extended his blade. Vethrys, face red with fury, glared at him over her cheekpieces. Their eyes locked for a moment.
Aldrio's blade wavered. He started to step back, pushing up his visor once again.
"Fuck you." Vethrys shoved herself back into a sitting position and grabbed his blade with both leather-gloved hands, close to the hilt. She wrenched it out of his slack grasp and swung one leg at his, knocking him down. She got to her knees and hit him with the butt of his sword, in the face, despite his open helm. Throwing the sword aside, she set one knee on his chest and ripped off his helm. His nose was already bleeding. She hit him in the face for good measure, with the dull round back of the helmet she'd removed.
"You were going to yield. Before the fight was done."
Aldrio knew better than to answer but he opened his mouth anyway. Vethrys hit him across the face with his helm again, the other way; the visor's edge opened a thin cut on his cheek. He wouldn't mention that he'd had her at swordpoint. He'd known she was going to win anyway. After all, she had. She had won. He'd never really been about to beat her.
"You would've dishonored us both," she said with some contempt, panting. Since it looked like he wasn't going to make another move, she pulled off her own helmet and shook out her hair. "Virtue is rare." She paused. "I don't put halt to a fight half-finished." Her expression changed to something a little sly and she backed off and let him sit up. Her tone had lightened now she'd realized she'd won and the double entendre changed the mood of the moment entirely. She did end some things unfinished, and for good reason. Aldrio stripped off his mailed gloves and dabbed at his bloody nose, flinching. He wouldn't look at her.
Yevan ran up, looking concerned, and Vethrys let him help her out of her armor. The faesteel on her practice armor, however gaudily decorated, had been too thin. Her pauldron, breastplate and backplate were badly dented. She'd have words with the armorer.
When she stood up, she spotted the hawk still perched at the end of the tilt, hunching and ruffling its neck feathers.
"Well fought, Sir Mirak," she said tightly, turning back to him as he got stiffly to his feet, stripped of armor too.
"By your leave, my Lady," he said, voice thick with blood, and bowed. "It's always an honor to lose to House Thandryon."
"It's always a pleasure to win," she said.
Suddenly she felt angry again. Vethrys whirled and cast about on the ground for the stone she'd tripped on, bent to pick it up, hefted it, and flung it at the hawk. The stone missed by a feather's breadth as the bird took off.
It wheeled and flew away, shrieking.
Vethrys stalked off the lists, hands in fists at her sides, chin tucked down toward her chest. She swung open the arena's gate without looking up--it hit something.
"Oh," she said flatly, looking up.
